Prime Minister Imran Khan is the winner today. His decision to ‘return’ the IAF pilot anoints him as an indisputable monarch of magnanimity, a prophet of peace. No matter what India does, diplomatically or militarily, it can never deliver comeuppance to Pakistan.

Pakistan will never lose this game of one-upmanship, for it has mastered the strategy, once employed by North Korea: Crazy Fearsome Cripple Gambit. When a nation chooses to fashion itself as crippled and fearsome, and crazy, it gets its way around.

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